In Remembrance

This Sunday marks the 10th Anniversary of the attack on the United States by the forces of Radical Jihadi Islam. Much can be said, and will be, about the vicious senselessness of the attacks, about the courage of the rescuers, about the grief of the families, about the valor of the passengers of United Flight 93, about the many stories of bravery, honor and heartbreak that come down to us from that terrible day. It’s been 10 years, and yet for many of us it is still too painful to remember without tears, in part because the mass media and the internet made it a “family event” for the entire globe. I have good friends who were simultaneous witnesses to the attack on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. We all followed it, aghast, in real time. When I think about it, I still feel the knot in my stomach, the anger, the desire for vengeance, the tears. All the emotions are still there and need only the direct focus of the gaze on that part of the heart to bring it all back. For those who lost somebody they loved, I can only imagine the pain.

9/11 is something else for us though. It is the first post-modern tragedy in Western history. This is reflected, first and foremost, in works of art like this:

Yes, that ugly thing is actually what our elites call a “memorial”. It calls us simply and solely to remember this world and the fact that the victims are dead. It demands we have no faith, slaps us for the sin of hope, and mocks us for charity. It rubs our noses in grave dirt and kicks us in the teeth if we try to look beyond the ruthless secularism of the post-modern West. I hope it is vandalized because it is an act of vandalism. Our dead deserve far better than that piece of slag. They cry out for a hope beyond this vale of tears. And thanks be to God, they still have one in our deathless Lord, to whom we can still pray on their behalf.

Equally telling of the poverty of post-Christian culture is the fact that postmodernity, by common consensus, has agreed to give this tragedy no name. Our history is littered with events with names: The Battle of Bunker Hill, Fort Sumter, the Assassination of Lincoln, Armistice Day, Pearl Harbor, the Moon Landing, the Challenger Disaster, etc. “9/11” is not a name. It is a coordinate on a calendar, a sort of statistic. Postmodernity could give it no name for the same reason Mayor Michael Bloomberg could not bear to allow clergy or the heros of that horrible day (people like this):

... to attend his little “memorial” ceremony: because our elites are trying to figure out how to have a culture like the “Church of Christ without Christ” in Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood, a place where “the deaf don’t hear, the blind don’t see, the lame don’t walk, the dumb don’t talk, and the dead stay that way.” We cannot memorialize it with a name because we cannot give it a meaning. That would be dangerously religious-sounding. So our elite propose to us rituals without transcendent meaning, secularity without a vision beyond this world, memorials with no faintest hint of hope.

Of course, the irrepressible urge of the human person to seek meaning—to find hope in tragedy and life in death—cannot be stopped by pressure from postmodern elites. And so, the workers who toiled in the rubble of the World Trade Center made the Cross at Ground Zero a focal point of their prayers as they bore the anguish of their bitter work. (The Punishers of Popular Piety have, of course, sought to banish that Cross.) Likewise, the vast majority of Americans fell to their knees on that day and the days following as they sought to find hope and life in the face of such terrible pain and destruction. That is still the norm as we approach this weekend and the memory of that awful day. So the best way we as Catholics can remember 9/11 is to go to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and pray for our dead, knowing that love is stronger than death and that the power of the Holy Spirit is not blunted or slowed by death—or by bureaucrats.

As for Mr. Bloomberg’s Sanitized-for-Your Protection “memorial service,” I cannot but hope that New Yorkers, citizens of that wonderful, brassy and deeply religious town, will simply ignore their elite’s attempts to make a desert and call it peace this Sunday. My fervent hope is that a crowd gathers outside St. Pat’s, that representatives of every major religion in the NY area (yes, including Muslims, who lost many innocent people in the towers that day) are allowed to speak, to mourn their dead, to commend them to God according to their consciences and traditions, and to grieve together for all we Americans lost that day. I hope that crowd then heads over to Ground Zero and—very peacefully and very loudly—breaks forth in the Prayer of St. Francis at full voice immediately following Michael Bloomberg’s speech filled with empty and meaningless post-modern platitudes. September 11 is a day for the grieving heart to reach out to God who pities us in our sorrow, not for the sterile post-modern puritanism of the Correct Bureaucrat. Let us, as a people, mourn and love our dead and commend them to God as we say, “Mr. Bloomberg. They are his, not yours.”

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love. Where there is injury, pardon. Where there is doubt, faith. Where there is despair, hope. Where there is darkness, light. Where there is sadness, joy. O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console; to be understood, as to understand; to be loved, as to love. For it is in giving that we receive. It is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life. Amen.

Comments

The seperation of church and state is a myth. The first amendment simply states that the federal government will not establish a state religion. It does not in any way say that God is not part of government nor should God be absent in government places or events.
Yes having so many faith traditions being present at the memorial would be cumbersome however not everyone would have to speak. Each faith group could choose a representative to speak for their overall faith tradition. You could have an athiest, a jew, a muslim, a buddist, and a christian speak. This would cover most of the faith traditions and by giving them a time limit would keep it from being too long. What better way to highlight our diversity than by having it represented? I think a great opportunity has been missed out on to show the world America’s inclusive nature. It might have been harder to do this way but in the end it would have been a light to the world and to the families.

Posted by Mary on Sunday, Sep 11, 2011 3:38 PM (EDT):

I agree-all beliefs should be represented. I’m guessing that the memorial planners decided as they did because ALL sects believe their way is the only path to salvation. There are Catholics who will want equal time with Protestants, who are also split into various sects. Judaism also has it’s different sects. Muslims, Eastern Orthodox, etc. will want representation. The time and expenses would be prohibitive.
As far as I know, anyone can speak their faith in public, it just is not to be paid for with tax dollars. No one is forcing atheism on the public, they are keeping church and state separate because we are a diverse nation. That is what our Founders intended when they wrote the Constitution.

Posted by LAJ on Sunday, Sep 11, 2011 2:27 PM (EDT):

It should represent all major religious beliefs, including atheism. What I object to is the fact that we are pandering strictly to the atheists by having NO inclusion of other faiths. They need to be inclusive too not just expect everyone to kowtow to their belief’s because religion offends them. Well atheism offends me but I do not deny them the right to voice that view in public. I’m getting sick and tired of people caving in to their totalitarian view of religion in society.

Posted by Karen on Sunday, Sep 11, 2011 12:35 PM (EDT):

Well said, Mary.

Posted by Mary on Sunday, Sep 11, 2011 12:13 PM (EDT):

It should not just be a Christian ceremony—Atheists, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Native Americans, and any other faith/non-faith has been affected by these attacks. Some get comfort believing in an afterlife and - believe it or not - some cannot accept that their loved ones live beyond this mortal life. The loss for everyone is real. Secularists deserve the same respect and compassion of anyone who has experienced a devastating loss.

Posted by Mark Shea on Sunday, Sep 11, 2011 12:00 PM (EDT):

Eric: 9/11 was an act of blasphemy and murder. The attempt to tar all theists with the brush of Jihadi terrorism is the work of a high school adolescent mind. Mayor Bloomberg has given you your memorial. The rest of us would like one too.

Karen: I don’t say people don’t respect 9/11. I merely point out that we cannot name it or give it a meaning (or rather our elites cannot) because they embrace a worldview that denies transcendant meaning to events.

Posted by Karen on Sunday, Sep 11, 2011 10:42 AM (EDT):

I agree with some of your points, but I disagree that collectively calling the event “9/11” means we do not respect it. In all likelihood, we are simply *still* too close to the day to feel comfortable attaching an official “name” to it - “9/11” has immediate and recognizable meanings (worldwide). There are some who refer to the day as “Patriot Day” which is fine, but it feels artificial because that name was imposed by above, by a suggestion from the government, not from the people who lived through that day. And it would only work in America - but this event touched lives *everywhere*

To be honest, in your list of other “named” events you included Pearl Harbor, The Challenger Disaster, and the Assassination of Lincoln, none of which are real names either - it would be the equivalent of replacing “9/11” with “Ground Zero (or New York City & Washington DC & Shanksville PA)” - the place it happened, the “Twin Towers Disaster” - the manmade object which was destroyed, or “The Assassination of Thousands” - technically true, but still not a name. I’ll stick with “9/11”

Posted by Eric L. Watts on Saturday, Sep 10, 2011 10:12 PM (EDT):

Mr. Shea seems quite comfortable venting rhetoric about secularists. I would remind him that the radical Muslim Islamist terrorists who attacked this country did so in the name of GOD. THEIR God is YOUR God and YOUR God is THEIR God. You cannot “reach out” and pray to the SAME God IN WHOSE HOLY NAME these heinous attacks were made in the first place.

Posted by Mary on Saturday, Sep 10, 2011 6:28 PM (EDT):

Let us remember that the victims and heroes of the 9/11 terrorism were of all faiths—including atheists.—-
http://nonprophetstatus.com/2010/09/07/a-committed-christians-atheist-heroes/—-
We all live together on this one small planet.

Posted by antigon on Saturday, Sep 10, 2011 6:51 AM (EDT):

And where there is error, truth - part of the original St. Francis prayer.

Posted by Steven on Saturday, Sep 10, 2011 12:49 AM (EDT):

What happened ten years ago was geographically centered in the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic states. However, everbody knows, or should know by now, that the attacks were an attack against the entire nation and western civilization as well. Having a piece of the lost buildings in as many towns as possible will serve to all of us of how much more we lost than expensive and extremely symbolic real estate: We lost almost three thousand innocent lives. If a piece of ugly metal junk that’s been lying in a hanger for all these years can serve to remind us what happened on 9/11, all the better.
Just tonight I heard from a very good friend he’d been asked to donate some funds for a Pearl Harbor memorial. What really got to him is the fact he was also told that as more and more Pearl Harbor veterans are dying every day, newer liberal groups have been busy rewriting the history books to portray the United States as the provovateur, thus Japan had no alternative but to attack our Pacific Fleet in Hawaii.
That’s bunk of course. But as time and decades pass, it doesn’t take a lot of crafty editing of the real historical record to twist and manipulate the story and meaning of 9/11 and Pearh Harbor.

Posted by Steven on Friday, Sep 9, 2011 10:27 PM (EDT):

The other night, while watching PBS’ Frontline, which featured “Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero” (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/faith/)I had the hardest time concentrating because of another haunting voice I couldn’t help hearing in the background of everything else I was at least trying to listen to in this piercing and thought-provoking show. If you can’t be moved by this folks, call a priest and cardiologist or an ex-ray technician to be sure you you have a heart.
Yet, all through it all, I couldn’t help shaking the soft voice of Alison Krause singing “There is a Reason,” and it was damn difficult holding back the tears while thinking back on all that’s happened on that day ten years ago and what else transpired as well; especially a war we started in Iraq over totally specious grounds. Remember well President John Adams’ famous warning, “Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.”
How I’ve kept my faith during all these years, how any of us, it’s indeed God’s work because the Prince of Darkness is forever at work in seeing to it that events like 9/11 and other similar events which have coarsened us and turned us into a different and harsher society than we were before. We can resist that evil force, but not by ourselves and our faith must never be taken for granted. We must always go to Him for more help to keep it alive because we will never have the slightest clue as to when we’ll really need it.

All throughout that two-hour long show, full of interviews, video replays, (all of which tastefully and masterfully edited) I couldn’t, I just couldn’t block out Alison Krause’s hauntingly lovely voice. She didn’t write the song, her lead banjo-guitarist Ron Block did, but it was her voice that carries this message to our hearts.

I’ve seen hard times and I’ve been told
There isn’t any wonder that I fall
Why do we suffer, crossing off the years
There must be a reason for it all

I’ve trusted in You, Jesus, to save me from my sin
Heaven is the place I call my home
But I keep on getting caught up in this world I’m living in
And Your voice it sometimes fades before I know

Hurtin’ brings my heart to You, crying with my need
Depending on Your love to carry me
The love that shed His blood for all the world to see
This must be the reason for it all

Hurtin’ brings my heart to You, a fortress in the storm
When what I wrap my heart around is gone
I give my heart so easily to the ruler of this world
When the one who loves me most will give me all

In all the things that cause me pain You give me eyes to see
I do believe but help my unbelief
I’ve seen hard times and I’ve been told
There is a reason for it all

(S) I still shudder when I look up on clear cloudless skies above my home area and remember that the first passenger was murdered as the hijackers took over the first plane coming out of Boston ... right over my hometown, a place that hadn’t seen or experienced any armed conflicts since Daniel Shays’ Rebellion. A plane travelling hundreds of miles an hour was to be used to start one war over where the last conflict in my area was fought with muskets and tomahawks. Yet, within weeks, our super secret and hi-tech CIA was invading Afghanistan on horseback. And they won then; but lost the peace when our leaders chose to follow the lead of our former Redcoat oppressors.

I can’t get Alison’s voice out of my head ... because I’m still grasping to find the “Reason why” that only deep prayerful introspection can possibly help us even come close to discerning. But if you need to let the waters of your own personal memorial pools flow ... by all means let ‘em flow.

God didn’t give us tear ducts for nothing.

Posted by Elaine on Friday, Sep 9, 2011 8:58 PM (EDT):

I agree with everything you said, except the reason why these attacks came to be collectively known as “9/11” or sometimes “September 11”. I think you read way too much into that.

It wasn’t the result of some postmodern politically correct “sanitization” process, but simply due to the fact that the date is the common link between THREE different attacks in three locations separated by about 200 miles or more. We can’t just call it “The World Trade Center Attack” without overlooking the Pentagon and Flight 93. And trying to call it “The World Trade Center-Pentagon-Flight 93 Attack” is quite a mouthful. Plus, the 9/11 date coincides with the commonly used 911 phone number for emergencies and has become a shorthand way to remember the role first responders played. I don’t see any dark anti-religious conspiracy there at all.

Posted by Patricia Gonzalez on Friday, Sep 9, 2011 4:12 PM (EDT):

Well done, Mark - and Babs, this Canadian is mighty angry at Mayor Bloomberg too.

At the risk of shamelessly I had a piece on this very thing in a series about history:

http://signsshadows.blogspot.com/2011/07/history-vi.html

Posted by sleepyhead on Friday, Sep 9, 2011 9:40 AM (EDT):

london uses the above to say “i dont understand what happened”... but they invited no family or other to unveiling…

Posted by Nikita Phillips on Friday, Sep 9, 2011 9:17 AM (EDT):

Mark,

I just read your article and it was a very moving piece.

In the town I live in there is what you call “9/11” memorial, actually it is a park, if anything. People from what I know are like those in the time of Lincoln who just wanted a piece of his clothing, because he was dead, they truly did not mourn for him, they wanted a piece of history, claiming right. WTC, Pentagon, and Flight 93 pieces are just that, claim markers for political figures to say “We have a piece”.

If I have any anger it is for those who truly forgot the lost and heroic deeds of that day and of days that supposedly moved our country (like Pearl Harbor) where you have those who younger than 14 who say, “So, a bunch of people died on that day” or “What so special about that day”.

It truly angers me and yet all I can do is pray for them all and constantly pray for the souls of not only September 11th, 2001, but also those who have died years before in tragedy.

God Bless,
Nikita

Posted by Babs on Friday, Sep 9, 2011 7:52 AM (EDT):

What is surprising to me is my lack of anger on 9/11, the seemingly uselessness of anger at that time permeated my being. But Mayor Bloomberg, he gets the anger. Because he disrespects the first responders to the souls in his stupid memorial. There were many pastors of different faiths who responded to the cry of their people that day. But he wants us to forget that. That’s worth my anger.

Posted by Eli on Friday, Sep 9, 2011 2:27 AM (EDT):

Mark, your article is moving, patriotic and poignant.

I could not agree more that the silence is stifling and the “sanitized-for-your-protection” model of memorialism isn’t a memorial at all, it’s just a platitude. I’m thankful that you’ve written so passionately and so directly to the heart of the matter.

Even in a culture where the elite and in-charge are seeking to sanitize society, we can be the resistance in the peaceful ways in which you have mentioned, and I’m glad someone has offered alternatives and brought them to the table where we can all share them.

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About Mark Shea

Mark P. Shea is a popular Catholic writer and speaker. The author of numerous books, his most recent work is The Work of Mercy (Servant) and The Heart of Catholic Prayer (Our Sunday Visitor). Mark contributes numerous articles to many magazines, including his popular column “Connecting the Dots” for the National Catholic Register. Mark is known nationally for his one minute “Words of Encouragement” on Catholic radio. He also maintains the Catholic and Enjoying It blog. He lives in Washington state with his wife, Janet, and their four sons.